


aqua vitae

by nikomedes



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), The Unsleeping City
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, graphic depictions of establishing a backyard koi pond, mostly in the sense i put more time between the art show fight and sofia committing arson, u ever just see two characters interact and thats your life now?, unrealistic i know we stan an impulsive queen, written prior to ep 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-12-22 09:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikomedes/pseuds/nikomedes
Summary: “You invited me out,” Em reminds her, maybe awkwardly? It’s hard to tell when her face is literally cast in bronze. She reflects beautifully in the still pond, under the moonlight, wings pulled in close as if she’s a little chilly too. “I’d apologize for showing up late, but even the Umbral Arcana can only do so much about an angel flying over Verrazzano.”Sofia Lee, Em, and the moments in-between.





	aqua vitae

**Author's Note:**

> as a note i've only seen through the end of the titania fight, so this may be more canon divergent than i intended. im just a simple lesbian, i see a bisexual mess hang out with a giant statue woman and i black out and write 10k alright

“I was accused of being a Banksy,” Em says. “Can you believe that? Almost a hundred and fifty years I’ve been in this city, I move three miles, I’m an_ art prank_.” 

Sofia Bicicl—no. Sofia Lee stares at the Angel of the Waters, who’s standing in her backyard on Staten Island. Sofia’s in a nightie and a big winter coat because she couldn’t find her robe, holding a bottle of shiraz by the neck with her right hand clenched in a fist, ready to absolutely fuck up whoever thought it was a good night to stand around in her backyard. 

“Also,” Em says into Sofia’s stunned silence, “it’s hard to compete with the big arch, you know?” 

“The what?” Sofia slurs. Her bare feet sink into the damp grass. It’s fucking cold out here. 

Em gives her a look. “You said go to Washington Square Park, I gave it a shot, but, you know, there’s the big arch, honey, and the fountain jets aren’t arranged for a lady to stand on top and look decent.” 

“Oh, shit,” Sofia says. She swigs her shiraz. “Right. Yeah!” 

“You good?” Em asks. There’s a metallic… rubbing sound, and Sofia realizes Em’s shuffling her feet on the edge of the little pond in Sofia’s backyard. It was Dale’s pet project. He dug the pit all in one afternoon and then spent two months painstakingly buying supplies in sensibly-budgeted trips to the hardware store, slowly lining it, laying out the pump line, placing the rocks. 

It wasn’t that long before Isabela Infierno that Sofia stood in the back door, watching Dale grin and hold the garden hose to fill it up. She’d helped him anchor the water plants, big lotuses and bunches of cattails, and ‘uh-huh’ed in all the right places as he explained why they were important, how the little ecosystem would work, and when he could, someday, add fish. 

“You invited me out,” Em reminds her, maybe awkwardly? It’s hard to tell when her face is literally cast in bronze. She reflects beautifully in the still pond, under the moonlight, wings pulled in close as if she’s a little chilly too. “I’d apologize for showing up late, but even the Umbral Arcana can only do so much about an angel flying over Verrazzano.” 

“Yeah, no, you’re good, Em, fuck, it’s so good to see you,” Sofia says, stumbling forward and throwing her arms around the big angel’s neck. “Just didn’t think—I mean, no one wants to take the ferry with… with me…” 

The tears aren’t anything new. They’ve been coming in unexpected waves since the trip to Nod. She thought she’d cried thinking she wasn’t the one her husband wanted, but that was nothing compared to living with the knowledge he’d never _want _anything again. 

“You wanna come inside?” Sofia asks after a good long sob. She points at her big empty house with the bottle while she wrecks what’s left of her mascara scrubbing at her eyes with her free hand. “You can have the master.” 

“I’m the Angel of the Waters, hun,” Em says. She shakes out her wings and looks down at the pond. “This is all good for me.” 

♕♕♕

  
Sofia doesn’t really know what to do the next morning when Em’s still there.

“You want a bagel?” she yells out her kitchen window. She’s so hungover her own shout rattles her brain, and it only occurs to her after a solid minute of silence from the angel that, to her neighbors, she’s yelling at a huge statue in her backyard, and to Em, she just asked if a statue wants a bagel. 

“Yeah, sure,” Em calls back. 

Sofia toasts her one too and walks out with it on a plate. Em takes it. 

“See you after my shift?” Sofia asks, trying not to sound too desperate. 

Em starts shredding the bagel, spreading the pieces out over the plate between her hands. Within moments, two pigeons land, inspecting the still-warm crumbs. 

“Won’t move a muscle,” Em says, and winks. 

♕♕♕

“It’s not that I’m not _tryin__’ _ ,” Sofia says, waving her phone, which makes her lose about an inch of vodka out of the glass in her other hand. “It’s just, like… you ever think about _not _thinking? I just sit there losing my fucking mind and Jackson sends me home, laughin’.” 

Em’s sitting now, legs sprawled out under the beautifully-sculpted folds of her gown, and Sofia’s leaning against her back, wearing sweatpants under her nightie and huge coat this time. She swipes around on her screen with more coordination than most people as drunk as she is would, thumbing past items like “lion mind” and “ground and clear.” 

“I even got this app, it’s free and they talk you through it, and shit,” she explains, “but mostly I just wanna throttle ‘em because they talk so_ slow _ _ !” _

“Meditative-like, maybe?” Em suggests. 

“Shut up, yeah, I_ guess, _” Sofia says, rolling her head on her neck, cheek pressing against one of Em’s wings, like… like a wingback chair, really. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, it seems easy. You know they got fuckin’ teenagers there, just, sitting around criss-cross, totally zen, and there’s me on my phone trying to get coached through pretending I’m on a mountain breathin’ some real clear air, or whatever?” 

“I think you’re doing it wrong, Sof,” Em says, raising her voice a bit to be heard as Sofia scoffs and starts to talk again, “no,_ listen _. I mean for you, okay, have you ever sat still in your life?” 

Sofia wants to joke but her stomach just sinks, and all she can say is, “Yeah, a lot in the guest room. But I sit on the bed there and all I do is think. And drink. Think and drink.” 

She sips her “vodka martini,” which is just a lot of vodka she’s stuck in a tall glass with some frozen plastic fruit shapes to keep it cool. 

“You think like that when you’re doing hair?” Em asks. 

“At first,” Sofia says, “but then I turned Liza Brusali’s bangs into a toothbrush and I had to get right, y’know?” She contemplates that for a second, either Em’s implication or the cosmic existence of microbangs, and then adds, “Okay, yeah, guess my mind’s pretty clear while I’m working, but I don’t know how to do that while sittin’ around!” 

“So don’t sit around,” Em says. “Cut some hair, or punch some water—you’re a monk, aren’t you?” 

“Am I allowed to punch some water?” Sofia asks, cracking up into a laugh on the last word. “Is that—is that your permission, angel, for me to throw hands with a bucket a water?” 

“I’ll apologize to it for you,” Em says, flatly, which only makes Sofia laugh harder. 

“Okay, okay, I’ll do something, just don’t think Jackson’ll be happy about it,” she concedes. “Never seen any of the kids get up during meditation and start, what, Flossing? But I can try it.” 

“Don’t floss in public,” Em chides. There’s a splash. Sofia twists around, looking past the statue’s frozen curls to where she’s gathering water from the pond in a bronze hand and letting it run through her fingers. “You probably won’t have to do it forever, just gotta learn to get your mind to that place when you want to, and you’ll be able to come back.” 

“You do a lot of meditating on Bethesda Fountain?” Sofia asks, abandoning her glass to turn fully and drape her arms between Em’s wings and over her shoulders. 

“I don’t exactly sleep, Sof,” she says, shrugging slightly. “So, yeah, I do. At night I just feel the waters, during the day I watch people pass, when I need a break.” 

Sofia watches her gather some more water, the way it trickles between her fingers. “You gotta be goin’ crazy just standing around in my yard with this pond.” 

“Nah,” Em says, though it doesn’t sound completely sincere, “like I said, you learn how to get there, you find your way back. One way or another.” 

♕♕♕

“What’s that?” Em asks, suspiciously, the next day when Sofia comes out in her tight patterned skirt and gets down on the edge of the pond, dipping a little plastic vial in the water. 

“Water test,” Sofia says, capping the vial and squinting at it. She gives it a shake for good measure. 

“Should I be insulted?” Em says. She plants her hands on her hips with a creak of metal. “You gotta test water I’m looking after?” 

“Can you promise that it’s, uh…” Sofia pulls a folded paper out of her bra and opens it. “…got ammonias under zero-point-one milligrams per liter, zero nitrites, zero p-p-m of… this is just nitrites again… oh, no, _nitrates _, and pH between seven-point-four and eight-point-four?” 

Em crosses her arms. “Yeah, I can.” 

“Alright, alright!” Sofia says, throwing her hands up. 

An hour later she’s back again with a bag from the pet store. She sets it in the pond to start, letting the air bubble trapped in the rubber-banded bag keep it afloat as the water within equalizes in temperature with the water around it. 

“Oh shit,” Em says. “Fish?” 

Sofia’s unusually quiet. She watches the little orange-, white-, and black-spotted fish inside swim all around each other, mouths opening and closing. “Yeah, uh. Koi. Dale… he loved all the animals and stuff that would come through the yard. He would watch the deer, and he tried a bird feeder for a while, but, uh, we got a lot of pigeons and gulls. He always wanted a pond with some fishes in it. Just…” 

She’s leaned forward to watch the bag float around so her fresh tears fall, with soft _plinks _, into the pond. She mutters something, maybe “shit,” and covers her eyes with her hands. Em leans over and presses an ungiving palm between her shoulder blades, gently rubbing circles with her fingertips. 

“You, uh, you know baby koi fishes are called peanuts?” Sofia manages after a while, sniffling. 

“You’re kidding,” Em says. 

“God’s honest truth,” Sofia insists. “Guy at the shop said, ‘sure, I’ll get you a bag a peanuts’ and I nearly clocked him for fucking with me, I _told_ him my water was right, I _know _about fishes, but he was serious. Peanuts.” 

Sofia reaches for the bag, which is a bit far into the pond, but it floats closer with some encouragement from Em, and snags it. With a quick_ snap_ she removes the rubber band and untwists the top. 

“Ready?” she asks. She gives a wet laugh. “Uh, you’re gonna be dealing with fish poop now, but Dale said, before, the plants help with that a little.” 

“Honey, I was a public fountain in one of the most visited parks in the world, in one of the biggest _cities _in the world,” Em says. “That’s just cute. Gimme the fish.” 

Sofia tips the bag and lets the rush of tiny fish flood into the pond. They disperse like a cloud, all darting off to explore their new home, and she leans back into Em’s solid touch, the bronze of her hand warming from their contact. 

♕♕♕

Sofia’s up at three in the morning because she’s been drinking steadily since four in the afternoon and it’s not sticking with her. 

She has a suspicion it’s something to do with her training. She’s been getting fit, even buff, she knows that, and she’s been happy with her hangovers becoming few and far between. But the idea her hot new monk body is rejecting her best—and pretty expensive—efforts to go on a bender is pissing her off. 

She slaps her tap on when she gets to the kitchen, hard enough she hears something pop and has to blearily remember how to cast_ mending_ to keep from having a plumbing emergency. She shoves a glass under her faucet filter and fills it up. 

Maybe it’s that it’s three in the morning and she’s miserable, but this cool drink of water tastes better than anything she’s ever had. 

It takes her a while, leaning against the counter, blinking, drinking this fantastic fucking water, to realize something’s bugging her. She blinks some more, trying to figure out what it is. 

The indicator light on her tap filter is red. 

“The fuck?” she slurs, looking down at it. She sets the empty glass on the counter and fumbles with the snap-on cartridge, finally popping it off to inspect it. The date on the QA sticker says it should’ve been changed three weeks ago. 

She turns the tap on again without reattaching the filter. Refills her glass. Has another drink. 

The best goddamn tap water she’s ever had, even with New York having good goddamn tap water. 

Em’s in the backyard, over the pond, not standing for once but crouched at the edge. She’s looking down into it with hands outstretched. As Sofia watches from the kitchen window, some of the koi pop up, mouthing at her fingers. 

♕♕♕

“Everything’s pretty dead now, but, come spring? Daffodils.” 

“Nuh-uh. No dice.” 

“Violets!” 

“Nah.” 

“Come on,” Sofia slurs. She’s trying a hard cider that’s supposed to taste like rosé, and having some rosé, as a taste experiment. And also because—rosé. “There’s gotta be a flower you like, Em, and how much’s a bag a bulbs, like, three dollars?” 

Em’s quiet for a long while. Finally, she says, “I used to have some lilies.” 

“Yeah?” Sofia presses. 

“Left them on the fountain, when I flew off, so people would know I was coming back,” she says. “Except I was sculpted with them in my hand, so, don’t even know what most people are seeing, with the Umbral Arcana. Don’t think they’re seeing anything at all.” 

She’s silent after that, doesn’t even tell Sofia to go inside before she freezes her tits off like usual. Sofia is too sauced to really put together anything Em’s said. She stumbles up after probably too long, sets the cider bottle with half the pink-ish contents still sloshing inside at Em’s feet, and, for lack of anything useful to say, pushes herself on tiptoe to smear a kiss on the statue’s cold cheek. 

The lights click out in the kitchen and then the guest room upstairs. Em raises a hand to her cheek and traces the edge of the magenta smudge. 

♕♕♕

It’s kind of funereal, Sofia can’t help but think. She doesn’t like the thought, considering, well, fucking everything, but it is what it is. Sure enough, lying at the foot of the fountain’s bowl are a few stems of lilies cast in bronze. 

The bowl itself is still rent down the side. It’s been left like that, bone dry and cracked, with caution tape of two types flapping from orange cones around the terrace it feeds— one in English and Spanish, another in runes Sofia can’t read yet, if she’ll ever be able to. She looks around for a public notice and finds one explaining that, due to unknown malfunctions in the workings of Bethesda Fountain, it’s shut down for the time being pending decisions on repair or replacement. 

“The fuck,” Sofia hisses. She glances back over at the fountain. To her eyes, it’s pretty fucking obvious what’s wrong here, and what needs to be done to fix it. 

“Hey!” she shouts at a nearby tourist. He’s lining up a shot with a big, chunky digital camera, the kind that go for a couple thousand dollars. He’s clearly trying to get the caution tape in the shot with whatever he’s seeing at Bethesda Fountain. “Hey, you, hold on a sec! Show me that picture.” 

“Uh, I have a business card, if you want to maybe order a print, later. I haven’t gotten to select the best shots, and—” 

Sofia doesn’t wait for him to finish his spiel. She snags the camera in his hands, jerking the strap around his neck with a force that nearly topples him over, and stares at the preview screen on the DSLR. 

There’s nothing wrong with Bethesda Fountain. Well, aside from whatever internal issue seems to have required setting up a cordon—the stark yellow of the mundane caution tape erupts from the bottom left-hand corner of the shot, cutting the old fountain off from the rest of the park in all the frosty neutrals of deep winter in New York. In the preview the bowl is in one piece, the flowers at the base are in the angel’s hand, and, most importantly, there’s an angel. Sofia snaps at the photographer until he shows her how to zoom in on the preview for a better look at details. 

She’s pretty, the fake Angel of the Waters the Umbral Arcana projects. Unmemorably so. Sofia thinks she’s maybe passed the woman a couple times in a drugstore and got insecure looking at her. Loose curls to her jaw, button nose, wide eyes, full lips. A real American beauty. 

Not really anything like Em, with her archaic hairstyle, long nose, hooded eyes, and small mouth. An American beauty for an America that didn’t exist anymore. 

Later reports are exaggerations. Sofia does not kick in the door to the Gramercy Occult Society. She knocks, a lot, and no one answers—answers fast enough, anyway—so she gives the door a try. With her heel. 

“Alejandro, what the fuck is this?” she shouts loud enough to carry through the front hall. She’s waving her cell, which she used to snap a pic of the preview on the DSLR, the resulting image nearly impossible to parse. 

Alejandro chokes on his Juul, the smell of mango salsa diffusing from an adjacent room. “Ms. Bicicleta, what—?” 

“This!” she says, coming in to stick her phone almost_ in _his mustache. “Why hasn’t this been fixed, huh?” 

Alejandro sighs and gestures for Sofia to take a seat. He’s wearing one of his fine, three-piece suits and settled into a leather armchair in front of the lounge fireplace like he was born to be there, while Sofia perches on the edge of the chair opposite in leopard print and Jimmy Chu knockoffs, bouncing her leg with impatience. 

“It is an issue of jurisdiction, I’m afraid,” he explains. “On the one hand, Bethesda Fountain has acquired magical significance over the centuries that make it as much a fixture in the Unsleeping City as in the mundane Central Park—and, of course, the damage done to it was caused magically. However, the initial installation, materials, and most contemporary maintenance is rooted in non-magical New York. The sculptor of the angel herself was never initiated into the other side. This means that determining how repairs could or should be conducted is a delicate—" 

Sofia slams her hand down on the arm of the leather chair. “Are you_ kidding_ me? If nobody fucking does something, the Umbral Arcana hiding the real damage, a hedge fund’s gonna sponsor the Conservancy taking a big back hoe to it and putting up a, a— like one a those ugly concrete modern things, a big _block_ or something!” 

Alejandro has the decency to cringe. He steeples his fingers, thinking, and after a moment says, “Citizens taking matters into their own hands with regard to the maintenance of public spaces is not unprecedented. However, it would still be a substantial project.” 

“Either you look into a spell,” Sofia says, “or I jack a torch from one of the construction sites on the Upper West Side and start welding.” 

“I will text Kingston,” Alejandro says, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “As Vox Populi, he may be able to assist in resolving the stalemate, or at least lending power to a repair.” 

“Thank you,” Sofia says. She clears her throat and sticks her phone back in her bra, trying to let her righteous fury go as she stands to leave. It’s hard. Being pissed off and getting things done is a lot easier than dealing with the other shit on her plate. 

“Sofia?” Alejandro calls as she’s about to let herself out. He follows her into the vestibule with an expression on his face that reminds her of the fact he’s not just a wizard or whatever, he’s a_ grandpa_ wizard. 

“What?” she asks. 

“Nothing, only...” He raises his Juul again and takes a drag. “You’ve very fresh to the Unsleeping City, yet you fight for it with little hesitation. I understand you have your own reasons for being here. Still—thank you. Fresh eyes remind us not to take what we have for granted.” 

“Yeah, well,” Sofia says, embarrassed now about coming in hot. She casts_ mending _on the door as she pulls the knob. The splintered pieces from the center pull themselves back into the wood grain. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, right?” 

Alejandro’s eyes soften too much for her to look at. “Very true.” 

♕♕♕

**_New messages from contact group “shitty avengers”!_**   
  
**Kingston Brown, 11:23 AM**   
Sofie—just heard from Alejandro. Good looking out. We’re talking options for Bethesda Fountain. 

**Kingston Brown, 11:23 AM**   
Could’ve spared Grammercy’s front door, though. Haha. 

**Sofie Bikes, 11:24 AM**   
Its FINE 

**“****jeffery****”, 11:24 AM**   
ana said u kool aid man’d that shit lol 

**“****jeffery****”, 11:24 AM**   
straight murked it 

**Sofie Bikes, 11:26 AM**   
I said its FINE 

**kugrash**** the rat king, 11:30 AM**   
wait im dlkjgfcued sofie broke a door ot the agel did 

**Misty, 11:30 AM**   
Sofia broke the door. Kug, you’ve got to turn on speech-to-text, my dear. I thought Pete was going to show you? 

**“****jeffery****”, 11:31 AM**   
tried but it just picks up rat squeaks 

**Sofie Bikes, 11:32 AM**   
I DIDNT BREAK THE DOOR!!! 

**Mr. March, 11:35 AM**   
_Sent a picture!_   
At the door right now. It looks fine. How is everyone? 

**Kingston Brown, 11:35 AM**   
Ricky, where’s your shirt? 

**“****jeffery****”, 11:35 AM**   
more importantly u ever considered a paid snap 

♕♕♕

The condemned house in Brooklyn is still burning when Sofia finally thinks to check her phone. One missed call from her mom. She doesn’t know how to feel about her family right now, especially not with Isabela Infierno’s blood still spotting her blouse. But she’s shaking, exhausted, and covered in first to second degree burns, so she fumbles with the screen until she can hit play. 

_ “Hey, __Sof _ _ . Just wanted to let you know, your brother gave me a call. I sent him over to see about your yard, because I know you’ve had a lot on your mind, but when I was walking by the other day I saw you got this real nice statue out there now and I figured— well, never mind all that. Anyway, Mario called and said he didn’t see any statue when he went to mow, and I wanted to let you know I called the cops about the theft! I know you’ve got a lot going on sweetie, but if they’re still there when you get home __you __oughta__ give them a __statement __so they know what to be looking for. Damn shame what the neighborhood’s coming to, huh? Anyway, love __ya _ _ ! Bye!” _

“I don’t have much left, but I could heal— Sofie? Sofie, where are you going?” Kingston calls. 

Sofia doesn’t look back. She sprints for Whitehall Terminal. 

The yard is empty by the time she gets home, well after midnight and with no sign of police still hanging around her house. That’s for the best. Sofia’s burned clothes are more a suggestion of an outfit than something she’d like to be seen in, and she doesn’t exactly want to be questioned on why she didn’t hang around for an ambulance as hurt as she is. She lets herself in and looks around. 

Mario was here. Mario knows where she went. 

Em’s gone. Em_ doesn’t_ know where she went. 

She tells herself she’s stupid for doing it even as she calls out into her big empty house, “Hey! Anybody in here?” 

“Yeah!” somebody calls from upstairs. She’s too distant to really make out the voice. She takes the stairs two at a time, slaps her burned palm down on the handle for the first door off the landing, and throws it open with the other fist raised for a jab. 

“Fuck, Sof!” Em cries, standing in her guest bath tub shower. “Don’t punch me— you still want use a that hand, right?” 

Sofia deflates against the bathroom door frame. “Shit! Em! I thought you’d been... wait, why’re you in the bathroom?” Em starts to say something but Sofia raises a hand. “No, don’t ‘Angel of the Waters’ me, I got a little zen fountain thing from a white elephant running in my room.” 

“You do?” Em asks. 

“Yeah, I like the sound of the...” Sofia shakes her head and waves her hand. “Forget that, what happened? Did Mario see you?” 

“Nah, I was facing the right way earlier when this old lady came by. Saw her look real funny at me, then get out her phone and make a call.” Em holds out a hand and drops Sofia’s spare key onto the back of the toilet. “Gotta put that somewhere other than under a rock, Sof.” 

“It worked, didn’t it?” Sofia asks. She starts to reach for the key, then sags, unexpectedly, all the exhaustion of the battle and her subsequent sprint to get home hitting her at once. She sits on the lid of the toilet and puts her head in her hands. 

“Sof?” Em asks, softly, her extended hand settling as a reassuring weight on Sofia’s hunched shoulder. “What happened?” 

Sofia can’t even say. She opens her mouth to start and her voice comes out a croak, strangled by a sob in her throat and the damage from smoke inhalation. Then the sob cracks and she’s crying. Her own tears sting open wounds on her face and hands. Em’s hand goes from a press to a grip, urging her over. 

“Come on,” she says, low and soft, “let’s get you cleaned up.” 

There’s no room for shame or embarrassment. Sofia steps out of her heels, peels off what’s left of her sweater, but has to have Em help get most everything else off. Her cami and skirt partially melted, and have to be pulled free with care. Her nylons just hurt coming off—not melted, but tight on skin that’s swollen and burned through them from her frequent runs through flames. Bra and panties are both delicate negotiations over more wounds. It really doesn’t occur to Sofia until she’s naked, looking at all the damage, how close she came. 

To dying. 

To joining Dale. 

To letting all her friends and more than a few bystanders burn up. 

“Easy now, I can get the handle for the shower, just stand up as straight as you can.” 

Em draws the shower curtain, putting a barrier between them and the rest of the world. To say it’s crowded is an understatement. Sofia has nice bathrooms, but Em is eight feet tall and has wings that want to fight with the handheld showerhead until she gets hold of it. It’s still beyond comforting to let someone else handle turning the water on, checking the temperature, changing the flow setting from Sofia’s usual punishing massager to a low-pressure spray. 

“How’s this?” Em asks. She eases the spray up Sofia’s body from her feet, letting her feel the temperature before it reaches her core. 

“You’re an angel,” Sofia says, without thinking, and laughs at herself. 

The laugh turns into a cough and the cough into another sob. Em takes hold of her waist to keep her upright and pulls her closer. The water is lukewarm in consideration of Sofia’s burns but even the little bit of steam and humidity gathering in the space helps clear her nose and throat. 

“She was a succubus,” Sofia manages after a few minutes, with Em’s hand steady on the back of her neck and the showerhead positioned to run water over her soot-stained face. With her eyes closed she can say it. “Isabela Infierno. An actual one, and I killed her.” 

The water moves away and there’s a thump as Em finagles the still-running handheld back into its mount. Sofia opens her eyes, blinking against lingering water running down from her brow, lashes heavy with droplets that blur her vision. Em hands her a wet washcloth. Sofia gratefully buries her face in it, able to work the ground-in ash and makeup off her face with less discomfort than she was expecting. Em pulls her forward again until water soaks her burned hair. There’s a click of a cap opening, and the floral scent of her shampoo blooms against the blood and smoke. 

Em massages it into Sofia’s scalp. Under her hands chunks of charred hair come away, leaving only the surviving, healthy strands to be cleaned for an eventual cut. 

“That’s my girl,” she says. 

Sofia lets the washcloth drop and presses against her. The bronze, warmed by the water running over them both but still fundamentally cold, still what it is, a balm for her bare, burned skin. 

Em’s arms encircle her and keep her close. 

Sofia passes out. 

♕♕♕

She wakes up to the sound of running water and Em talking. Sleep wants to pull her back down, but Sofia’s confused and wants to take stock. She rolls her head to the side on her pillow. Her tabletop fountain is on, trickling flow just barely drowning out the little motor that keeps it running. Em is sitting on the floor with her back against the side of the bed, Sofie's cell in hand. 

“She’ll be fine, just gotta keep her resting, which’ll be the real problem,” she says. Sofia strains to hear and thinks she picks up Misty’s lilting voice. “Yeah, exactly. Uh-huh.” 

Sofia turns her head to the other side where a warm weight presses against her hip. La Gran Gata opens one eye and begins to purr. 

“No thanks, Misty, I got my own magic, don’t I?” Em leans back. “Yeah. I’ll let you know. Alright. Bye.” 

“S’that how you used my phone?” Sofia mumbles. “Magic? Didn’t think it’d read your fingers.” 

“Nah, I had help on that one,” Em says. Sofia looks down at a prickling of claws on her skin and La Gran Gata raises a paw to reveal, possibly, the universe’s most perfectly-formed toe beans. She looks back up at a cool touch to the side of her face. 

Em cradles her cheek in a hand and says, “Hey.” 

“Hey yourself,” Sofia says back, managing a smile. “Your magic why I don’t feel like a bunch a browned hamburger, fresh out of a skillet?” 

“Amazing what a shower can do,” Em says, laying her other arm on the side of the bed and resting her head in the crook of her elbow. 

“Didn’t even know I owned actual pajamas,” Sofia says, lifting a corner of the blanket over her, “only ones I thought we had were...” 

Dale’s. Flannel, in blue and white check. 

“Sorry,” Em says, pulling her hand back. “They were the softest ones you had, and you gotta stay down for a little bit.” 

Sofia inhales deeply, pulling the blanket back down around her. She waits for the tears. They don’t come. After everything that’s happened, Sofia feels like a bowl—hollowed, empty, clean. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, reaching over to twine her fingers with Em’s big bronze ones, watching the light play off the metal and her skin, old olive and new a shiny pink. She clears her throat. “You gonna be around when I wake up? That was a close call, earlier. With... with Mario, I mean.” 

“Well, I mean, now that I’m aware there are appropriate accommodations indoors,” Em teases, nodding over to the desktop fountain. 

Sofia smiles as she sinks back into sleep. 

♕♕♕

It’s an adjustment, waking up to an eight-foot-tall statue in her room. For one thing, they do a lot of shuffling around each other in the guest bedroom, and it’s hard to use the dresser. 

“Maybe we switch to the master,” Sofia finally suggests. “Just till I’m back to fighting shape, y’know?” 

“Now there’s a thought,” Em says, drily, but she packs up the tabletop fountain with great care as they relocate. There’s no question she’s coming with. 

Sofia wedges some cinderblocks from the yard under the seat of a velvety armchair by the bed and pushes a heap of old shopping bags off it. Em plugs in the fountain on the side table and settles in. The chair creaks but holds. 

Sofia can’t really find any words to say how much it helps when she wakes up because of the emptiness of the bigger bed to look over and see Em perched there, running her fingers through the little fountain’s stream, reading one of Sofia’s many trashy paperbacks. 

She also can’t find the words to ask if_ she’s_ any help, waking up to bug Em, when she catches the statue staring out into the yard in the middle of the night with a vacant expression that reminds Sofia of punching water. 

♕♕♕

It’s one of those nights when Nod comes to find her. 

Sofia doesn’t remember what she was dreaming prior to the visit, so what she sees is some kind of visual distortion, a slurry of sound and colors, resolve itself into a diner. Nod is sitting opposite her in a booth, tabletop hitting them about mid-chest. They have a long spoon in one hand poised over a banana split. 

“Oh, Gray Baby!” Sofia says, then coughs and quickly amends, “I mean, gray, uh, kid— Nod! Hey!” 

“Hello, Sofia,” Nod says. They use the spoon to begin breaking up one of the bananas. “I’m not a baby.” 

“No, I know, old habits,” she hurries to say. She barely has time to think about it before a glass mug of hot buttered rum is set down before her by a passing waitress. She slides the stick of cinnamon laid across the top into the glass and stirs, sipping with a contented hum as warmth diffuses through her. “I’ve been craving one a these! Love this borough.” 

Nod spoons up some ice cream and banana, takes a bite. “You seemed to have a bad time, last time.” 

“Well...” Sofia half-shrugs, half-winces. She slurps some more rum. “I mean, helluva thing to learn, but, also... I got to see Dale again, say goodbye, kinda. And the rest of the place is pretty fun, so...” 

“That’s good,” Nod says. They keep eating their ice cream. Sofia looks around as she drinks. Nothing looks actively dangerous or about to turn into a fight—at least nothing that isn’t _supposed_ to be like that, she thinks, but then dreams are weird when they’re not yours. 

“So, did you need something?” Sofia asks. “Not that I don’t want to hang out, it’s just, haven’t seen you since the last time, and I kinda thought Pete was the one you liked to hang out with.” 

“I’ve visited Pete,” Nod says, “but you wanted something, and you helped, so I wanted to help you.” 

Sofia smiles and raises her drink slightly in a toast. Nod shakes their head. 

“Not that,” they say. “Your friend. The Angel of the Waters.” 

Sofia blinks at them. “I— Wait, can_ you_ help with the fountain? I didn’t think you could go to regular New York, with what happened last—" 

“I can’t,” Nod cuts in. “Visit the waking world without getting hurt, or fix the fountain. But you wanted to understand. Are you ready to go?” 

“Go where?” Sofia asks, but she dutifully knocks back the rest of her drink. 

“Home,” Nod says. It’s barely a whisper, and then barely a moment, but the entire diner seems to shift sideways and blur. Kitschy vinyl booths and black-and-white tile become steel and huge glass panels. They’re standing in Whitehall Terminal. “We have a ferry to catch.” 

It’s the longest ferry ride of Sofia’s life, or at least it feels that way. They seem to crawl across the Upper Bay, steel gray waves dour against the colorful, magical world around them. Sofia almost leans off the deck checking that the boat_ is_, in fact, running, and they _are_, in fact, leaving a wake behind them to indicate some kind of speed. 

“What’s the holdup?” Sofia finally asks, foot bouncing. “This is ridiculous!” 

Nod points to the other ferry riders, clusters of indistinct figures pantomiming their own irritation. “Perception shapes this borough. They dream, and dread their commute. It makes it longer.” 

“So, we could be here forever, all because of these schmucks and their nine-to-five angst?” Sofia asks. 

“Unless a more powerful perception overrides them,” Nod affirms. There’s a slight smile on their face. “Someone dreaming of a time it seemed to go very fast, maybe.” 

It takes Sofia a moment to catch their meaning. Then she clenches her hands, closes her eyes, and_ remembers_. The rides with Dale when they were dating, dinner in Manhattan behind them and only good things ahead. The rides more recently, when she was drunk and overheated and would sit out on the deck, cooling off, that never seemed to last long enough for her to get her act together. The ride just the other day when none of the local shops had turned up the type of koi she was looking for, with the fish in the bag and kids looking at her like she was a different kind of magical, just for having live fish on the ferry. When she couldn’t wait to show Em, and looked up from smiling at the gulping baby koi— _ peanuts!– _schooling together to find they were already coming in to St. George Terminal. 

A ship horn blows. She opens her eyes to find them docking and Nod fully beaming. They disembark with the rest of the dreaming, befuddled commuters perking up at the change in their routine, and take off walking. 

“What do you know about the angel?” Nod asks as they wander through the streets. 

“Not much?” Sofia admits, cocking her head to the side as she tries to think. “I mean, she lived in Central Park, took care of the water, is real good at sobering me up, likes fishes and crowds..." She trails off, feeling embarrassed. “Like I said. Not much.” 

Nod sweeps their hand under the mat in front of Sofia’s door and pulls out her spare key. “You should consider putting this somewhere else.” 

“Listen,” Sofia starts, but doesn’t bother to finish. She just follows the Monarch of Dreams up through her own house to the master bedroom. She blinks, waiting for what she sees inside to resolve itself. When it doesn’t, she looks to Nod, only to find the gray child looking at her. 

The bedroom is dreamlike in the sense that it looks the way Sofia had always hoped it would when she and Dale bought the house. Like something out of a magazine, barely lived-in, and definitely not strewn with keepsakes she doesn’t know how to deal with and discarded bandages, as it is now. Warm afternoon light falls through the window to cast the entire space in amber, despite the fact that outside, just a minute ago, it was an evening glittering with stars. And there, seated in the velvety chair by the bed, is Em, but she’s... different. 

It’s like a double exposure, overlay, some weird Photoshop effect. Two women and the face of a statue flicker over each other as Em reads. She doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Is she... Em? Hey, Em!” Sofia calls. The angel doesn’t look up from her book. 

“The Angel of the Waters has never dreamed,” Nod explains, quietly, taking one of Sofia’s hands in their small gray one. “Right now she can’t see or hear you.” 

“Why not?” Sofia demands. “And what’s with the...?” 

She makes a vague gesture to her own face, then jerks her head towards where Em’s swims under another woman’s for a moment—the same delicate mouth, but the eyes larger and kind of sly, like she’s in on a joke no one else is. Another flicker. Em's heavy eyes stay the same but the next woman’s hair is longer, bound up in twists to the sides of her head. Then it’s all Em, somewhere in-between the shades dancing over her, some features borrowed and more idealized. 

“Emma made her,” Nod says. The woman with Em’s eyes slides back into place, more distinct, lips pursed with thought as she studies something in her hands Sofia can’t make out. “She loved art, loved to sculpt, lived in Rome and learned to make beautiful things. She met her love there.” 

The sly-looking woman with Em’s mouth comes back, dressed more like Em than Emma had been in some kind of stage costume. “Charlotte, tall and forceful. She loved many, but came home to Emma, in the end. Because she had to end. All people do.” 

Em shows through, her deep green patina shifting with the light as she turns a page. 

“Except the Angel of the Waters,” Nod says. “She was in the Park when Charlotte’s lungs failed, too wet, and after Emma stopped making beautiful things in her grief, and went too. She stayed on her fountain with the four babies who weren’t hers, or even like her—Temperance, Purity, Health, and Peace. Reminders of her duty. Alone with her millions of visitors.” 

“And then somebody broke her fountain,” Sofia finishes. 

“Yes,” Nod says. They pad over to the tabletop fountain at Em’s elbow. “She could go too, like Emma and Charlotte, sort of. She knows how to do that. But she won’t.” They give it a touch with their free hand and it changes, gray-painted resin stones turning bronze. “Because she’s not alone now.” 

Their other hand is small and cold in Sofia’s. She gives it a squeeze as she watches Em, oblivious to their presence on the other side of waking, keep reading Sofia’s trashy paperback with the memory of the women who shaped her ghosting over her skin. “You’re a good kid, you know that?” 

“I’m not really a kid, either,” Nod points out. 

“Still.” Sofia leans down and kisses the top of their head amidst the gray curls. “Thanks, kid.” 

When Sofia wakes again Em’s watching her. She doesn’t have pupils or irises, but Sofia can almost_ feel_ her quickly flick her gaze away. 

Her eyes land on something else and she squawks. "What the hell happened to my fountain?” 

♕♕♕

** _ New messages from contact "Kingston Brown”! _ **

**Kingston Brown, 9:10 PM**   
We put a lot of stuff together, but we’re still looking at about three weeks to execute the ritual. 

**Kingston Brown, 9:10 PM**   
I know that’s not what you want to hear, Sofie, but we’re going to have to pull a lot of pieces together. 

**Sofie Bikes, 9:12 PM**   
No no I get it. Thanks kingston. Really 

♕♕♕

Sofia does get it. Magic, she’s seen, is_ work _. There’s research, all the books involved in that, spell components, maintaining the natural order, respecting the Umbral Arcana and all the other weird little magical quirks that keep the Unsleeping City from spinning out. Watching Alejandro nearly kill himself to make the trains run on time had been enough evidence that it’s less abracadabra, more throw your back out. 

Knowing that doesn’t stop her from ducking the caution tape and wading into Bethesda Terrace to put her hands on the broken bowl of the fountain. 

She remembers doing this before, new to the Unsleeping City and sure she had magic like the others. Trying to lay on hands like Ricky or change the color of something like Pete. Misty had insisted she was magical in other ways and she hadn’t been wrong. No one else could throw the punches she could, move like she could, endure what she had. But sometimes you just want to cast a spell. 

_ Mending_ doesn’t do much for the bowl. Some of the edges get a little less sharp, crumbled and burnt metal coming back together by millimeters. She could cast this all night—she literally could, she learned recently, because it’s something called a ‘cantrip’—but it won’t fix it the way it needs to be fixed. 

She keeps casting. 

A tail swings down from the unbroken edge of the fountain’s bowl next to her left hand. Sofia looks up to find La Gran Gata looking down at her, mismatched eyes slowly blinking. 

“Listen, I’m not trying to push it,” Sofia says, “but you can't make this go faster, can you? Or... work better?” 

“I could,” says her patron, “but it may take more than you’re ready to give.” 

Sofia sits back on her heels and pushes her short hair out of her face. “Have I been ready for any of the shit that’s happened to me, so far? Like, honestly?” 

The tail swings back and forth. The bodega cat of all bodega cats seems amused. “_ Have_ you?” 

“Please,” Sofia pleads. 

La Gran Gata stands, walking until two of her paws are on each side of the rend. 

“Making more metal is nothing,” she says, and as she speaks the bronze does grow, spiraling out in fractals to close the gap, a hair-thin crack all that keeps the bowl from being whole again. “What must be replaced is not the material, but the feeling that was taken.” 

“What feeling?” Sofia asks, running her finger down the fine line. 

“Safety. Constancy. The conviction that not everything will be lost.” La Gran Gata yawns, flashing her sharp teeth, and settles into a loaf on the bowl’s rim. “That she can protect the waters. A promise that this will not happen again.” 

“A promise...” Sofia repeats. Haltingly, she slides the stacked golden bands off of her left ring finger. 

“I told you,” her patron says, “it may be too much.” 

“It’s okay,” Sofia decides, pinching them between her fingers. “Can’t carry ‘em around forever, can I?” 

La Gran Gata purrs. 

“Besides,” she adds, “I think Dale would call it a good investment.” 

Sofia presses the bands into the tiny crevice, and they dissolve under her fingertips into burning, liquid gold. The diamonds from her engagement ring drip down the weld to settle like precious rivets. The feeling of _rightness _is immediate and intense. Her patron mrows her displeasure at getting damp as the water sputters back to life and mists the both of them, a warning. 

Sofia laughs. La Gran Gata disappears. The bowl spills over, restoring flow to the stagnant terrace, and she’s soaked through with the good news she can’t wait to share. The cold water soothes her stinging fingertips as she wades out for the trip home. 

♕♕♕

**_New messages from contact group “shitty avengers”!_**   
  
**"****jeffery****”, 09:57 PM**   
yo so weird question 

**"****jeffery****”, 09:58 PM**   
anybody else wake up RLY needing to pee 

**"****jeffery****”, 09:58 PM**   
had a dream abt water and stuff but didnt want to go and like 

**"****jeffery****”, 09:58 PM**   
idk accidentally release a piss demon from the 6th borough on our spot 

**Kingston Brown, 9:58 PM**   
What the hell? 

**Kingston Brown, 10:01 PM**   
Oh goddamit, Sofie. 

**"****jeffery****”, 10:23 PM**   
was that a yes or no dude im dying 

♕♕♕

“What’d you do with our fish?” Em asks. Her arms are crossed as she studies the empty pond. 

“It’s too cold for them here,” Sofia says, shouldering her duffel bag as she shuts the back door to her house for the last time. “Pond’s not deep enough, they woulda froze.” 

“I wouldn’t’ve let them freeze,” Em insists. 

“I know you won’t.” Sofia steps towards her and pulls one of Em’s big bronze hands into her small gloved one. She’s dressed simply in black pants and shirt under her winter coat. “Come on, I got a surprise for you.” 

Red and orange light shines from the closed curtains of the dining room at their back. Em raises her eyebrows. 

“Not that,” Sofia insists, towing her by the hand, “that’s insurance fraud.” 

They just miss Ricky on the ferry. Sofia tries to keep from laughing as she texts him that she's okay and he didn’t need to personally fight a fire for her. She shows Em the pictures on Twitter of him doing a flawless breaststroke across the Upper Bay—filed to the increasing popular **#****marchindecember **hashtag she follows—and Em tuts, saying, “Yikes, doesn’t he know what’s _in_ that?” 

Sofia has no idea what everyone else is seeing on the ferry or the streets afterward. She could care less. She and Em stay hand in hand all the way to the Park, though Em’s starts trembling as they get close to Bethesda Terrace. Sofia’s to the point of blowing a ki point to hold on as they get close enough to see the fountain. 

“Oh, fuck,” Em says. “Oh, shit._ Sof _.” 

“Don’t do that,” Sofia says, trying not to cry at the sight of Em’s bronze shoulders shaking. “Go check it out, huh? See if I did okay. Alejandro and Kingston were pretty cheesed.” 

They wade into the terrace together. Em chokes out a laugh at the sight of their koi crowding their ankles, begging for crumbs. The Angel of the Waters doesn’t spread her wings to fly and Sofia doesn’t stop to think about practicalities like weight or relative heights between them, just crouches to give Em a boost as she reaches for the lip of the fountain bowl, something like magic letting her climb up through the splashing water like she weighs nothing at all in Sofia’s hands. She keeps going until she can take up her spray of lilies and stand upright again. Her toes curl on the pinnacle and her eyes close. 

Sofia can feel the_ texture_ of the air change. The silky mist of water falling over her, this close to the fountain, seems to slow and diffuse. It turns back the cold breezes of the city wanting to chill hands and chap lips. The smell of water, minerals, wet pavers nearby, wet bronze close—a scent that’s more like home now than her scented candles or her sangria—and fresh flowers rolls over her. She opens her mouth on the next inhale. She fills with warmth, like the first sip of hot buttered rum in the land of dreams. 

“I think you did alright, Sof,” Em says, all soft. 

Sofia opens her eyes to spread wings against the evening sky. Em crouches, finding the place where the rend was, and braces her hand over the gold line. She reaches for Sofia with the other and pulls her up. If she were anyone else, balancing alongside Em on the wet sphere capping Bethesda Fountain would probably be impossible. But Sofia Lee isn’t anyone else. She’s a monk of the Order of the Concrete Fist and the chosen of La Gran Gata, so she stands on tip-toe in her black pumps on that fountain as Em slides an arm around her waist. 

She doesn’t so much as wobble when Em kisses her, and she definitely pops a foot. 

♕♕♕

“You got a bucket I could borrow?” Sofia asks as Jackson leads her to her new room at the monastery. 

Jackson gives her a look like he thinks she’s either concussed or drunk, which would normally be fair, but she’s stone-cold sober and hasn’t picked a fight in at least a few hours, so she gives him a stink look right back. 

“You know we got, like, actual working toilets and stuff, right?” he asks. “I know you think monastery, you think ancient temples, but this is New York City. We got toilets.” 

“Oh, gross, no, for_ water _, God!” Sofia says. “Like my barrel, out in the yard. For punching and shit.” 

“Not shit!” Jackson insists, pointing at her accusingly as she gags. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll see where I put the ones I made you climb the stairs with your first day.” 

Sofia stashes the duffel bag containing all of her earthly possessions in the modest room Jackson has for her, folding her black shirts and pants into a crate. On top she arranges her little fountain. It’s a lot heavier made of bronze, now, but it looks real nice. A swanky personal touch in the ascetic digs she’ll be calling home. One of the other acolytes comes by with a bucket full of water and she dips some up to fill the fountain’s reservoir. 

It starts up the moment water touches it. That’s for the best. Her next step involved sitting on the ground holding the plug, looking for an outlet she doesn’t think exists in this room. 

“This is _New York City _ ,” Sofia parrots in Jackson’s craggy old drawl. “We got _toilets _. No plugs, though.” 

Exhaustion hits like a sucker punch. She’s got a mattress on the floor in a place that isn’t technically Staten Island due to zoning disputes past two miles in the air, functionally one outfit, a family tied up in ancient evil, a lot of claims paperwork ahead of her on the house, and about fifty new messages in the groupchat about dinner plans for opening night of Misty’s show. This is her life. 

_ It is what it is, _she thinks as her eyes drift closed, and she’s smiling. 

She reopens them to the sound of wings flapping and metal creaking. 

“Uh, hey,” Em says, arms folded on the sill of a window that definitely wasn’t in Sofia’s room before. She’s out on a fire escape that’s also a new addition and descends apparently forever, back down to the mundane streets of New York. “So, weird thing happened—I went to do my kinda meditation thing that I told you about, but I kept hearing this little trickle, so I followed it. Except I _definitely _got to Staten Island way too fast for any of this to be real. You know anything about that?” 

Sofia looks between her little bronze fountain and Em. “Gray Baby!” 

_ “What?” _Em asks. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Sofia says, sitting up in bed and scooting over to the windowsill. “I think you’re dreaming, angel. How’s it feel?” 

“Not too different,” Em says. “My life ain’t bad, so, I’m not dying to go... I dunno, ride a dragon, or whatever the people I passed on the way here were up to. There was a_ lot _of singing, and I get enough a that in the Park.” 

Sofia grins at her, leaning into the window. “Nah, you came to see_ me _.” 

“I was just following the sound of my fountain,” Em teases. “My_ other _fountain.” She sits back on the fire escape. “So, you gonna be here for a while? Couldn’t come to civilization, but at least got out a the suburbs?” 

“Rude! See if I invite you over again.” Sofia’s grin shifts into more of a tired smile. “But yeah, this is it, for now. Home.” 

They just look at each other for a moment. Then Sofia leans out, and Em folds her wings close to lean in, and they meet in the middle. Before was great. Really more of a gesture, Sofia’s lips pressed to cold bronze, but a great one. 

Em is neither cold nor bronze in their dream. 

“Well,” she says, “_ that’s _different.” 

“Yeah,” Sofia agrees, lipstick smudged to all hell. “Big time.” 

“Mind if I come in?” Em asks. 

“Think you’d better,” Sofia says, backing up to give her the space, “Catch your death of cold, now, hanging around outside like that.” 

Em laughs, a soft contralto giggle, and climbs over the sill. They settle on the bed together like two facing apostrophes, her wings stretched out across the floor. 

“Hey,” Em says, again. Her hand, where it’s twined with Sofia’s between them, is as warm as her lips were. 

“Hey yourself,” Sofia says back. “How’s our fishes?” 

**Author's Note:**

> gays truly do just be like "hands rebirth through water tenderness <s>cowboys</s> magical realism repression nature longing." 
> 
> if you liked this, you can find me on tumblr not creating original content but sharing a bunch of memes [@she-hulk](http://she-hulk.tumblr.com). if you actually want to read more of my work and love roleplaying game stuff, check out an archive of stories i've written about RPG characters you don't know at [my wordpress site](http://alexstoryvault.wordpress.com).


End file.
